A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 15, 2023.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Stocks rose on Wednesday, building on the strong rally from the previous session, on the back of more encouraging inflation data.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 193 points higher, or 0.6%.
After tumbling 18 basis points on Tuesday, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury climbed 9 basis points in Wednesday’s trading session.
October’s producer price index, which measures wholesale prices, fell by 0.5% to mark its biggest monthly drop since April 2020. Not all of the economic data was positive, however, since retail sales also declined.
“Clearly, interest rates are the key driver of this stock market, and the activity today makes sense because PPI was very, very cool, as we had expected,” said Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “Today, rates are a little bit higher not because of PPI but because retail sales printed a little bit hot relative to expectations.”
Wall Street is coming off a strong session in which the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their best day since April. Those gains came after the consumer price index remained flat for October, while a Dow Jones consensus expected a slight gain.
In corporate news, Target popped 18% on better-than-expected results for the third quarter. Shares of apparel company VF added 15% following a JPMorgan upgrade to neutral from underweight.
Wall Street also had its eyes on Washington as lawmakers tried to avoid a government shutdown. Late Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to avert a government shutdown. The measure will go to the Senate for a vote. If cleared by lawmakers, the legislation goes to President Joe Biden. Without a funding bill, the federal government is slated to shut down at the end of the week.
— CNBC’s Chelsey Cox contributed reporting.
